


Brooklyn Boys

by Carbon65



Category: Captain America (Movies), Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Allergies, Alternate Universe - Canon, Bullies, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Catholic Characters, Cats, Crossover, Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Kid Fic, Period-Typical Homophobia, Steve Rogers is a Brooklyn Boy, Steve Rogers learned from the best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-31 10:05:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15117128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: Steve grew up in Brooklyn. Spot grew up in Brooklyn. It's only natural that one Brooklyn Boy should help another.





	Brooklyn Boys

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [We're From Brooklyn (Art)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/393836) by kkpyropanda. 



> Alternative Summary: I don't know how to explain to my boss that Im working late again tonight because my fingers slipped and I wrote fanfic before work.
> 
> Cross posted from tumblr.
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings
> 
> Illness. Mentions of animal cruelty. Bad lying. Animal Allergy.

Spot looks at the little blond boy Sarah Rogers was bouncing on her hip. He’s this tiny thing: slight and short with somber blue eyes. Joesph - Marbles - had been a piece of work, even at six. Mrs Rogers, though, is a gem and a half and she's made due since her husband died. They help in what little ways they can: Marbles might have been an asshole, but he was a Newsies and, with the union, that meant someone to be taken care of.  


Sarah looks at him straight on, washed out blue eyes somber. “I’m sorry to ask, Mr. Conlon, but... I have a shift, and Miri - Mrs Barnes’ - got enough on her hands with the two she’s got and the third on the way. Would you?”

Spot shrugs. He mostly likes kids. He typically prefers ‘em old enough to be a little bit more independent. But, how much trouble can a tiny three year old be?

...A lot of trouble, it turns out. A hell of a lot of trouble, it turns out.

Steve is an artist. He finds the pencil Race - Spots _roommate -_ was using to go through the Race results again. (Theres nothing wrong with two single men living together to save rent. Even if there’s only one bed. But, they work split shifts: you only need one bed with Spot working nights and Race working days.) The horse, or dog, or possibly pig? he draws is good for three year old hands and the five minutes he gets. 

It’s the first time Spot’s seen the kid actually sit still (and Mary and Joesph, isn’t that a blessing). So, Spot finds him some old Newspaper and sets him down to draw.

* * *

Sarah Rogers knocks at his door, jaw tight and blue eyes frantic. She’s in her work uniform, but she’s alone. Spot misses the little boy who usually trails after her.

Sarah looks at him straight on, blue eyes tired. “I’m sorry to ask, Sean, but... I have a shift. And I can’t take him to someone who has kids, he’s got the croup.”  


“Yeah, I had it, an’ I think Ra-Tony did, too. I can watch him a few hours.” Spot agrees. He likes the kid. Reminds him of some of the boys he’d known as a kid. Steve is feisty and independent and oh so smart, but he’s not mean like Marbles was. 

Spot asks Sarah a few more questions that he vaguely remembers the answers to, to make sure he ain’t gonna make the kid worse. And then, he follows her to the small tenement room that the Widow Rogers and her young son rent.

Steve is laid up in bed, patched quilt draw up as far as it will go. His fever-red cheeks are bright against his paper colored skin, and his hair is damp with sweat.

With a few more hurried words, an agonizing look, and a kiss for her son, Sarah Rogers is gone.

Steve sleeps, fitfully, in the bed. He rolls over, back and forth, back and forth. He coughs, a sharp barking sound, like the seals you sometimes see down by the water. A hand curls around his ribs and he scratches at them, as though he’s rubbed the skin _inside_ raw from coughing. 

Steve wakes for a few moments, and Spot tries to coax the boy to drink some tea, and take a few bites of the thin porridge Sarah had left for him.

“No,” the boy whines with more force than should be possible for a child that small. “No, I don’t want to.”  


Spot falls back on _years_  of leading a band of Newsies. He hadn’t done most of the management of the littles. Spot is cunning and fierce and abrasive. He can be gentle, but he was also busy. Still, he’s done it a time or two, and he knows how to bribe a kid without spending a dime.

“I’ll tell you what, Steve, if you can finish the rest of your tea, I’ll tell you a story,” he wheedles.  


“What kind to story?” Steve asks, horsely.  


And, oh, Spot isn’t as good of a story teller as Race. Racetrack Higgins should be here telling the story, after all, he was there. But, after so many years, Spot isn’t sure where the worn truth ends and Race’s embroidery begins.

“A story about how a rag-tag band of Orphans and runaway went up against the most powerful man in New York City, and won,” he says, voice sounding more certain than he feels.  


Steve nods, and pulls himself up against his pillows. _Good,_  Spot thinks. Sarah said Steve might breath better sitting up.

Spot looks at him, and begins the story the way he’s heard Race tell it a few times. “In 1899, the streets o’ New York echoed with the voices of Newsies, peddlin’ the news for a penny a pape...”

* * *

There’s a knock at the door. Spot and Race break apart, suddenly, and move to opposite sides of the room. Race straightens the buttons of his shirt, and Spot hikes his suspenders as he goes to the door.

Twelve year old Steve Rogers is standing there, looking up at Spot through those intelligent blue eyes. One is just starting to swell. “Bucky can’t come out ‘cause it’s Saturday, and Ma had ta work, and I’m bored,” he announces with all the drama of a twelve year old. He sneezes, ruining the effect.

“Well, com’on in then, why don’t ya?” Spot says, opening the door and making a grand motion.  


Steve looks over at Race. “Your shirt is buttoned wrong, Mr. Tony.” 

Race looks down and blushes. He turns away and busies himself with fixing the order.

Steve sits down at the table. He sneezes, again.

“Who soaked ya, kid?” Spot asks, looking around for a rag. They just got a tap in the apartment, so he runs the rag under cold water, and hands it to Steve. “Hold that against your eye. It’s hurt, but the cold’ll help.”

“I know,” Steve says, obediently taking the towel and holding it in place. “An’, it don’t matter, ‘cause I soaked ‘em right back.”  


“Ya did, didja?” Race asks, coming back tot he table with three glasses of water carefully balanced in his good hand.

Steve shrugs. “They was pickin’ on some kittens. Puttin’ ‘em in a bag, an’ sayin’ they were gonna drown ‘em in the harbor.” He sneezes.

“Where’s the kittens now,” Spot asks, warily.  


Steve fiddles with the grain of the wood. He pulls a pencil out from his back pocket and starts flipping it. He doesn’t meet Spot’s eyes.

“Steve,” Spot Conlon, King of Brooklyn Newsies, growls. “Where are the kittens?”  


Steve doesn’t meet his eyes. “In... in my apartment.” The boy’s voice is small. “They were makin’ me sneeze.”

Spot and Race exchange a look over Steve’s head. “Bored”. Bullshit.

“I couldn’t just leave ‘em,” Steve insists, misinterpreting the look. “Someone else woulda drowned up.”  


...Which is how Race ends up with 18 million cat scratches from trying to wrangle a half feral bunch of kittens out of the Roger’s small one room apartment, while Spot cleans Steve up and explains the rules of poker. It ain’t his fault that Race had had the same tell for the last 40 years or so.

* * *

Spot jostles Race’s shoulders, and they clutch their money tight. It’s harder to be Anthony Higgins, now. He don’t go by Antonio, even at home. There’s too much wrong with being Italian right now. They crowd into the auditorium, desperate for some entertainment. Newspapers and Newsreels, it’s all bad news. Oh sure, Elmer coulda sold these headlines, the headlines sell themselves. But, their ain’t headlines you can’t to be selling, cause it means some poor kid still young enough to be selling papes is out there dying.

The crowd parts, and Spot sees a poster. Blond hair, a broad chest. Blue eyes he knows. He’d know that face, anywhere. He’s seen it too many times. The kid would come to them to get cleaned up, before he went home and showed Sarah how he’d gotten busted up this time. He brought his friend, Bucky, too, sometimes. But Bucky was more weary about the apartment. He didn’t have even Steve’s and Spot’s little bit of Gaelic (mostly curses). And, he said the crucifix made him nervous. 

So, no, that’s fucking Steve Rogers on the poster and on stage. The boy looks like he did... something. He looks like some goddamn tall tale headline now. The kind of bull you’d pull after a long day. And, he’s up there dancing in _tights_.

But, damn it if Spot ain’t proud of him: one of his Brooklyn boys, joining the fight.

Steve calls out to the auditorium, silencing the crowds. “Ya know, I come from Brooklyn.”

“BROOKLYN!” Spot howls, a fifteen year old boy in pink suspenders, “We Brooklyn boys gonna get em.”  


**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted on Tumblr because (a) I prefer (a) archiving and (b) reading on Ao3 better. 
> 
> Now you've finished the story, please go back and reblog/like/compliment the art? Please and thank you! And, also, you know, feel free to let me know what you think as well?


End file.
